Lancashire Justices of the Peace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

COMMUNICATIONS LANCASHIRE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES IN the administration of justice in the county palatine of Lan caster a considerable part has been played (and is still played, though to a lesser extent) by the Duchy of Lancaster, of which indeed the Palatinate is a component part. The appointment of the judges and the justices of the peace, regulations for their sessions, their remuneration and many such administrative matters, were controlled by the chancellor and the council of the Duchy. It was with good reason that in the latter part of the sixteenth century, when religious matters in the county occupied so much attention, it was emphasised that the Chancellor of the Duchy must be a man very well affected in religion, if only because he "nominateth the sheriffes and justices of the peace in that county palatine".(1) The present notes touch on some of these matters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: not exhaustively it is true, but rather as a pointer to further research. One could wish that more were known of the actual procedure for appointment of justices of the peace in Lancashire during these two centuries. In the country elsewhere appointments were controlled by the King's council, and in Lancashire it was the Duchy council and the chancellor who were responsible.(2) John of Gaunt, a year or so after the palatinate had been recreated for himself, left the nomination of justices to William de Nesfield, then chief steward in the county, and to Sir Robert de Plesington who was soon afterwards to succeed him in that office; the chancellor of the county palatine was then to appoint their nominees. (3) But later, in 1432, a name was sent down from the Duchy to the chan cellor in the county for appointment as a justice of the peace, and three years later the earl of Salisbury was similarly nominated for appointment. (4) These are by no means isolated cases. The administration of justice in Lancashire was often on the agenda of the Duchy council, and it must be said that the county had a reputation for lawlessness. In 1482 the Duchy council spent much time considering ways and means for reformation of "the unrestfull rieulle and governaunce" of the county, but in the end had to admit the solution beyond it, agreeing, with a hint of "' P.R.O. Slate Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, Vol. XLVI, p. 63. !'" G. H. Tupling, in South Lancashire in the reign of Edw. II (Chetham Third Ser., Vol. I) p. Ixi, suggests that under the Tudors the judicial system of the Palatinate was assimilated to that of the country as a whole, and the local commission of the peace brought under the supervision of the privy council. It was not so. No doubt he had partly in mind the act 27 Hen. VIII, c. 24, but that statute expressly saved the Duchy's position. 131 P.R.O. Palatinate of Lancaster Chancery Warrants, 1/122. "' P.R.O. Duchy of Lancaster Miscellaneous Books, 18, fos. 19v and 41. 183 184 LANCASHIRE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE despair, that "thies materes can nat bee remedied by noo personne but oonly by the King him self, if it wold like his grace to come into thoos parties". (1) Nevertheless, the Duchy council did occasionally issue regula tions for the holding of sessions of the peace. Among some ordinances drawn up for the Duchy as a whole, probably between 1470 and 1480 or perhaps a little later, there are a few "appoint ments necessary for the good and politic rule of the county palatine of Lancaster". The only one of these appointments that deals with justices of the peace lays down that they shall be sworn in the chancery of the county palatine and that they shall keep sessions of the peace four times a year in due place, and more often, if necessary, according to the statute. The times for these statutory sessions, common to the whole country, were the week after Epi phany, the second week of Lent, between Pentecost and the feast of St. John the Baptist, and the week after Michaelmas. In the fifteenth century at any rate these dates do not seem to have been very closely observed in Lancashire. The justices were paid their statutory wage of 4/-d. a day by the Duchy receiver in the county, and he entered the justices' names and the dates of sessions in his accounts an important source of information which is paralleled by the record of similar payments in the Pipe Rolls of the Ex- chequer. (2) But the receiver has not helped us by saying which were quarter sessions, for extra sessions could be held at any other time to deal with breaches of the peace, and the number of sessions varied considerably. In 1438-9 there were fifteen, in 1446-7 there were twenty-six, but in 1455-6 only five; in 1471-2 the number was eighteen. In the next century a few samples show eight in 1506-7, four in 1516, ten in 1540-1, sixteen in 1551-2, 1580-1 and 1586-7. <3) By this time we are approaching the surviving sessions records, and when they start in a regular series in 1590 the number of sessions is of the same order as in these last few years. 141 Some assistance in deciding which are the general or quarter sessions may be derived from consideration of the "due place" for holding the sessions, as prescribed in the regulations quoted above. Now the "due place" was a matter not entirely free from doubt. It is true that in 1362 John of Gaunt had ensured a pre-eminence for Lancaster by procuring a grant under the great seal of England that all pleas and sessions in Lancashire should be kept at Lan caster. But in 1546 the judges of assize at Lancaster called together the greater part of the justices of the peace at the April assizes and framed articles for holding quarter sessions. These were subse quently agreed and expanded by the chancellor and council of the Duchy and published in June of the same year. The general quarter sessions of the peace were to be held four days in the year 111 Duchy of Lancaster Orders and Decrees, 1, fo. 62. 121 Miss B. H. Putnam, Proceedings before the Justices of the Peace in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries (1938), p. xviii. 111 See Table, p. 189. '" J. Tait, Lancashire Quarter Sessions Records, Chetham N.S., Vol. 77. LANCASHIRE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE 185 for each of four divisions of the county: for the hundred of Lons- dale at Lancaster, for the hundreds of Amounderness and Black burn at Preston, for the hundreds of West Derby and Leyland at Ormskirk in summer and at Wigan in winter, and for the hundred of Salford at Manchester. The days for the Lancaster sessions are laid down as the Mondays following the 2nd of February, the feasts of Michaelmas and Epiphany, and Low Sunday; and the sessions for the other hundreds were respectively the following Wednesday, Monday and the succeeding Wednesday. These agree pretty closely with the statutory dates, and the sessions continued for a short time in this way.'11 In Trinity term 1556, however, the Duchy council made an alteration in the articles by allotting only two days at Lancaster for Lonsdale hundred and giving Blackburn hundred two days at Preston and two at Clitheroe.'21 Although this may fairly have represented the amount of business to be done, the arrangement, not unnaturally, did not commend itself to Lancaster, and the corporation put in a bill to the Duchy. It alleged that not only the change in 1556 but also the order of Easter term 1546 had been engineered by William Kenyon the deputy clerk of the peace. The matter came up in Michaelmas term 1556, and 20 October the town's case was opened by its learned counsel Thomas Cams, at that time also vice-chancellor of the county palatine and subse quently a judge of the Queen's Bench. He produced the letters patent of 13 November 1362, and stressed the loss of revenue to Lancaster as a result of the recent orders. The council had to admit that it made the orders without having notice of the letters patent, and accordingly the court made a new order that all general sessions of assize and gaol delivery were in future to be held at Lancaster; the four quarter sessions were to be held as before the order of Trinity term 1556, and the arrangement for Clitheroe was rescinded.(3) The table on page 189 shows that in 1557-8 the new scheme was followed, the dates agreeing with the council order of 1546, although there were only two sessions at Manchester, and the solitary session at Bolton, held 4 August 1558, was clearly an extra one. Between 1587 and 1590, however, a change occurred in the series in which the sessions began, for in the latter year they began at Manchester and proceeded in the order, Wigan (or Orms kirk), Preston and Lancaster: but by 1601 the earlier rota had been restored.<4) The Duchy order of Easter 1556 did not give Lancaster all the sessions of justices of the peace, and the corporation was guilty of wishful thinking if it believed that the sessions had formerly 111 Duchy of Lancaster, Misc. 12/22: the articles also deal with the procedure for appearance. They were annexed to an order made in Easter term 1546 and published 6 June 1546, Duchy of Lancaster, Misc.

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